Even if Shatter removes 6 % of damage reduction it could worth it (on a 30% heavy armored dps)

from the sniper point of view, a shot at 700 would now do 760.

Not far from a 10 % boost.

I read in pve theorycrafting that several armor debuffs are added, so 5 player could remove the armor of a boss.

That's why I usually keep a Shatter on every Soldier/Jedi Knight I fight unless he will be down very fast.

This conversation piqued my interest. Honestly it all depends on the role you take in your warzone. And even more, I think a lot of serious pvp'ers have either recently left WoW or have the same kind of mentality.

Warzones are akin to battlegrounds, not arenas. Mobility, survivability and DoT damage are all great in arenas. They're great in Warzones too, you can put a lot of pressure on a healer if one person is bursting one guy and the other is dotted up pretty badly, it puts consistent pressure on a person.

In arenas, you have to be a lot more self-sufficient, have to be able to deal with a person running up into your face, have to have a good way to escape situations yet still put pressure. So why are Warzones different? Simply put most warzones are mission driven, have a goal to capture something. Arenas were focused on killing players, not capturing points.

I've pvp'd as all 3 specs and a couple of different hybrid specs. My favorite by far was marksman, I'm good at keeping away from front lines and keeping a healer from just turret healing. Does that mean marksman is the best pvp spec? No, it doesn't. If I get a shadow in my face I'm hard pressed to keep him off of me, let alone deal with what my team needs me to do. So take everyone's opinion with a grain of salt, everyone has a different playstyle that is useful in some way.

You do realize:

 

A. Marksman burst is AWFUL against any class with mitigation or heavy armor?

B. Big deal we do the most burst, we also have the least survivability, and the least mobility. Damage is not always the most important...just look at how good Juggernauts are in PvP or how Warlocks were in early WoW when they used SL/SL. Damage =/= Good at PvP.

C. Easily dispelled? It's not that easy to dispel if you're a competent Lethality sniper...

 

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Heavy armor alone is not enough, getting 4k+ crits against mercs, CMs and DPS juggs isn't hard or uncommon in the least. The only ones with half decent mitigation are tank spec'd tanks in tank stance and Lethality really doesn't fair much better and if the other team has a operative or merc present lethality SHOULD be worthless unless those ops/mercs are retarded.

Least survivability? I have more mitigation than a DPS jugg. The only classes I would seriously say are more survivable would be a marauder and a tank/hybrid sin. If you're talking about getting focused by 5 people it really doesn't matter what class you are, you're dead in 2 seconds. I think far to many people play MM and forgot that you can move and doing so brings benefits especially when you have things like snapshot and ballistic dampers. If you have to stay put? entrench, shield probe and ballistic shield to add more fun. You have more tools to survive then nearly anyone else out there, don't give me that not survivable ********.

Not easy to dispel against lethality? Click button. You now have no poison effects on target which kills your damage since you have no DoT's ticking and major reduction in cull damage.

Sometimes things seem better on paper than they really are. People seem to overvalue armor way too much. And while it is true that against a well geared tank we are going to have trouble so will almost any class. You run out of energy, distance and time way faster when you are lethality. 18k damage is a lot of dots for a long time so you won't be able to pop a couple of CDs and possibily stop that tank from scoring on Huttball... you have got a little bit more options with MM such as knockback ambush, root cover pulse, and a lot more damage on demand from Followthru and Insta-Snipe. As for Distance since you spend more time in cover tanks cannot leap at you. So if you are on the top platform in huttball they have to just take it and when and if they start getting close they have to deal with flashbang, debilitate, cover pulse, leg shot,knockback ambush and 9 seconds of -45% acc, plus 3 seconds where they cannot do damage to you.

This is true. I guess it comes down to what you consider to be PvP success. This game isn't WoW where if you were good at killing, you could be Gladiator and claim bragging rights. It comes down to Objective Points. Kills/Damage done are secondary. At the moment the game gives us freedom which is proven by the fact we can sit here and argue the PvP viability of all 3 of our trees. I'm slightly curious to see what emerges as the top choice once Ranked Warzones come out. There are scenarios where Marksman can be viable and even better, but the best way to put it is that Marksman is situational. For team play (coordinated pre-mades) it can be great, but it has weaknesses. For solo queues, Lethality tends to be much more versatile with the fact that you get a ton of snares/stuns/slows/dots .

I find Lethality to be a better spec for going on the offensive. If you want to push objectives, run around, kill people, etc...Leth or Leth/Eng is far superior. If you want to say ... defend on Civil War or Voidstar, then Marksman is great. You can set up somewhere and torch people (as long as they aren't tanks).

Oh and Ballistic Shield is sorta ****** in PvP. There are SO many knock-backs in this game, all it takes is someone with half a brain to use one and knock you out of cover to end your Shield (though sometimes i see the shield stay up even though I'm out of cover, not sure if that's a bug or not). Until Entrench is fixed to grant us immunity to knock-backs I would hesitate to claim that Ballistic Shield is great in cover.

When rated warzone comes into effect, I believe most snipers will switch to Engineering for Plasma Probe.

No DPS can take down a guarded healer solo, nor can a DPS take down a healed tank solo. The guard system is simply overpowered for PvP. After a while, all teams will only consist of healers and DPS tanks.

When rated warzone comes into effect, I believe most snipers will switch to Engineering for Plasma Probe.

 

No DPS can take down a guarded healer solo, nor can a DPS take down a healed tank solo. The guard system is simply overpowered for PvP. After a while, all teams will only consist of healers and DPS tanks.

Or not two solution evil burst on other target or knockback on the tank guardhave a very little area effect.

Or mez and grapple on the heal.

Most snipers seems to have things backward. Lethality spec have a greater burst against armored opponents, but bigger energy cost. Marksmanship have lower energy cost but sucks against armored opponents. As most PvP situations involves a short burst of fighting followed by movement/idleness/death, it suits the Lethality tree better.

 

As to the general design, the 3 trees for each of the classes starts off with this in mind : direct mitigated damage (PvE), unmitigated damage over time (PvP), and a tree for utility. Of course, not everything went as planned, which is why the developer swings the 'nerf bat' (I mean, adjustment) so the class will behave as they envisioned it.

Most of your damage come from DoTs. You do more damage. Over time. Wouldn't that make it better for like... you know.. Boss fights? Or any other long-ish fight?

D'oh.

Um... Rapid Fire isn't supposed to be for PvP. Clearly that's the PvE tree. If you want PvP Talents go Eng/Leth.

Or go 30 / 8 / 3 in pvp cause SoS is very low on my order for pvp.

Here's how I see balanced PvP. Healer types are strong against tank types, which have low dps. High burst dps types are strong against healer types. And tank/damage mitigation types are strong against dps types. Which means either MM spec snipers should be able to burn down a healer or the devs have a different idea of pvp balance.

I tend to lean toward the idea that the devs have NO idea of pvp balances and are just winging it based on some fail *** PvE WoW model.

I really enjoy MM , and of course the best wz for it is huttball - multiple levels , fire obstructions , and the best part is that while you're in cover nothing can jump to you or pull you down.

As a sniper I have multiple times taken down the ball carrier , armor or no armor and very close to the finish line. the burst at high range is simply incredible , or you can just stop em dead in their tracks while they're crossing fire hazard .

The role however that I most often perform is to clean up the mid from enemies. If my team controls the mid , they take the ball. Now what they do with it is a different story but I strive to give my team the best start.

Also as a MM I've found that you're most successful when you snipe or at least shoot near your max range . If you're doing a close range sniping you're doing it wrong.

Just my 2 cr.